


Winter

by Hanna



Category: Captain America: The First Avenger - Fandom, Marvel, Thor (2011)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M, Thor is the Winter Soldier, Thundershield au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 10:07:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hanna/pseuds/Hanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Thor remembered falling.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>He remembered being a soldier, struggling hard to hold to who he was as he was systematically tortured and reprogrammed, remembered losing himself to their words and the identity they planted in his head.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>He remembered the snap as his mind broke, as clear as anything. He remembered letting go of himself.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>It felt like falling again. Only that time, there wasn’t an end.</i></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Thor is cast to Earth as a child in the 1920s and raised alongside Steve Rogers in an orphanage; but he remains mortal for far, far longer than Odin had ever intended, and suffered a lot at the hands of the Red Room in that time...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asktheravens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asktheravens/gifts), [Book_Wyrm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Book_Wyrm/gifts).



> I don't even know where this story came from but it consumed me. Beta'ed by a Levon (aliceinasgard.tumblr.com) and it wouldn't exist without a Molly (alittlethor.tumblr.com) and her continuing support, and the commissioning of an amazing artwork (mrhiddles.tumblr.com/post/59220820759) for it from mrhiddles (http://mrhiddles.tumblr.com), which was the best birthday present ever.
> 
> Also, a disclaimer: I know less than nothing about comic canon!Bucky, and what the Red Room did to him. I bullshitted literally all of this.

**Winter**

He remembered.

He remembered growing up on Asgard surrounded by riches and boys and girls who fell over themselves to be his friend, the sons and daughters of nobles. He remembered common children staring at him in awe and trepidation the few times he saw them. He remembered growing up with Steve in the orphanage, attending Mass every Sunday and being grateful for the clothes on his back, as shabby as they were.

He remembered falling.

He remembered being a soldier, struggling hard to hold to who he was as he was systematically tortured and reprogrammed, remembered losing himself to their words and the identity they planted in his head.

He remembered the snap as his mind broke, as clear as anything. He remembered letting go of himself.

It felt like falling again. Only that time, there wasn't an end.

He gripped Mjolnir's handle tight and wondered if his trigger word still worked. He could almost taste the way he snapped tight into Alexei Vasnetsov. Even with the Alltongue he still sometimes spoke Russian, still heard the accent and hated the way the syllables tasted on his tongue, harsh and grating. He wondered if even now, even with all he had recovered, he could still lose himself to the men who had robbed him of everything.

He would have prayed they could not, but who did a god pray to?

XX

No one had noticed the star fall, an especially bright star, except those who watched the sky avidly and they had no idea where it had come from. He had been found in the crater; a boy of about seven with long blonde hair. No one knew who he was or where he'd come from and when asked he didn't know where his parents were.

"I'm Prince Thor," he said, holding his head high proudly, his arms crossed over his chest, staring at them as if daring them to challenge him, "And you're all going to be in trouble."

"Well, Thor," one of the nuns said with a tolerant smile, "Come with us." He set his jaw, scowling at her lack of proper address.

"Why?" he asked.

"So we can take care of you," the nun said. "Until your parents come," she added seeing him open his mouth and grabbed his arm. He struggled against her hold but he wasn't strong enough to break it and she towed him away. Steely eyed she glared at him but he never stopped fighting her, scowling all the way to the orphanage. She kept a firm grip on his arm.

"Father is going to get you for this," he said haughtily as the door shut behind them. "I'm a Prince of Asgard and you can't keep me captive."

Thor didn't like the orphanage. The bed was too hard, the blanket was thin and scratchy and the other boys snored. He'd never slept in a room with so many other boys before, only Loki. He missed Loki. He would be home soon, though. Father wouldn't leave him here long.

As he slipped into sleep he was confident of that.

XX

It was never cold on Asgard.

Russia was very cold.

But even being mortal he had never been overly cold there. He had a good cold tolerance. He supposed, now, that he'd kept it from his godhood. Or was just naturally tolerant to it. But then he had just assumed that it was because he'd been born there and grown up with it.

Alexei was a lie. But even knowing that he could still remember the sister they had told him he'd had, the one killed by a serial killer. Could even see her face from the photos they had showed him (one of the girls in the Red Room, he assumed; one of the ones who hadn't survived. He had no doubt they hadn't needed to fake the pictures of her covered in blood). Could still feel the anger at her death.

He remembered three different lives, and sometimes, it was hard to be sure which was real.

XX

He'd given up on who he was before.

He remembered the orphanage. He remembered being told over and over there was only one god. He remembered laughing in the faces of the nuns. But Father never came and the doctor told him he had invented Asgard to get over the trauma of losing his parents and brother- and he believed him.

"They're real then?" he asked worriedly. "I didn't make them up too?" The doctor smiled at him.

"No," he said. "They were real. But try to remember that this is real, that Asgard doesn't exist." He nodded solemnly, and tried to forget about being a god prince.

But he never quite could.

Looking back at the number of times he had allowed others to tell him who he was, he wondered if he was weak- if that was why Father had cast him out. If he knew the inherent weakness in his son.

If he didn't want him because of it.

XX

He was an assassin.

More than that, he was a  _good_  assassin. He was the best assassin. He was ruthless and he liked what he did, liked killing. He didn't care who he killed. And though some might say it was the conditioning and programming that led him to be that way he remembered, as a prince, condemning an entire race to die on account of his pride, and he couldn't be sure.

XX

He met Steve Rogers the second time he was a boy.

He was being picked on by the other boys and Thor had never been able to stand bullies. He ran over and punched the leader in the jaw, earning his enmity and Steve's friendship in the one blow. It wasn't a particularly hard punch, but it did the trick.

He was rapped across the knuckles for raising his fist to another and praised for defending Steve in the next breath, and it was worth the pain.

XX

They'd never been able to entirely erase Steve from his memory, he didn't think. He still remembered a boy with blue eyes and blonde hair. But perhaps he was remembering himself.

He didn't know anymore; he could never be sure about anything.

XX

He'd joined the army when World War Two started. Steve had already tried twice and he'd felt bad about being accepted, but Steve had told him that he should serve his country. He'd squeezed his hand and known Steve meant every word, and his bitter disappointment that he couldn't join him. Steve was simply too sickly.

"You can still serve," he said. "Just- not on the front line."

He knew the instant he said it it was the wrong thing to say, but then again, he'd never been good with words. He kissed Steve, and he'd always been better with actions.

They didn't discuss it that night.

XX

He met Natasha Romanov as Alexei.

Or, as she knew him, as everyone at the time knew him, the Winter Soldier.

He trained her in combat, though he learned as much from her as he taught her, and she was an excellent pupil and teacher both. They never quite fell in love; but they did have what might be called a romance, and they did care for each other.

Of course, they were both puppets, and all it took was one little word to erase all that.

XX

He had fallen in love with Steve.

Despite everything he'd been taught screaming that it was wrong, that boys should not love boys- he had fallen in love in Steve. They had sought out quiet corners and awkwardly held hands, kissed once or twice. He remembered, now, that they had snuck out the orphanage one night and given each other handjobs, and it was the most daring thing they'd ever done.

The matron thought they had gone out to get drunk, and they let her think that, shamed yet ecstatic. They had a quiet laugh about it later.

When he forgot Steve, he forgot he loved him.

XX

When he looked at Natasha again when they met at SHIELD he knew instantly that she'd broken her programming. There was something in her eyes, a hard edge that he knew well, the determination to never again be a puppet.

He saw it in the mirror every day.

It was nice, not to be alone.

XX

Steve never understood; not really. And Thor didn't try to tell him. There were no words to explain how it felt to live even two lives, and to have a third-

Sometimes his programming reared its head and all he felt when he looked at the stars and stripes on Steve's uniform was utter hatred.

He loathed himself for letting them control him still.

XX

They told him he'd lost his arm in an accident, and he thought it was the only true thing they had told him.

He hadn't meant to fall from the train after all.

And as good as his new arm was, as useful, as strong- they had constantly upgraded and replaced it so their pet dog had the sharpest teeth they could give it- it couldn't handle Mjolnir's charge, and he felt bitterness well up in him.

They had not only stolen his past but his entire future. He couldn't be Thor Odinson, God of Thunder if he shorted out his own arm every time he used his powers. He was useless.

XX

When he first saw Steve after falling it had been decades, including the time he'd spent dead. He felt nothing but hatred for him. He had tried to kill him, and he would have succeeded but for the fact they were almost evenly matched and Steve had managed to get the upper hand.

He had ripped his mask off in the process and fell back, jaw gaping, breath leaving his chest fast.

"Thor?" he whispered, and his voice cracked.

He had taken the opportunity to strike him, and then Steve's backup arrived.

XX

He cringed whenever he heard Russians now. They were good people, most of them, certainly. They had not committed the crimes the Red Room had.

He was still furious at them all. Furious and afraid.

XX

He didn't remember his trigger word.

That terrified him most of all.

That he could hear it on the television or down the street, spoken by an unassuming innocent, and he could be lost once more. He had never encountered someone who had spoken it and didn't even know if it still worked but the mere thought of being stripped away from himself once more, leaving only a monster-

He shuddered at it.

XX

He was a god. He should hardly have been afraid of any humans. But when the Avengers went up against a remnant of the Red Room he was.

He saw in Natasha's eyes that she was just as scared.

"Winter Soldier!" the Red Room agent said and he snarled furiously, made ready to hurl Mjolnir at him. The agent smiled widely.

He didn't hear the word that he spoke, or, if he did, didn't remember it after. But all of a sudden he was  _gone_.

Captain America was there, and he was the enemy. This he knew intimately. He lifted the hammer in his hand and he turned to face him and grinned savagely at the fear on his face.

"Thor, Thor!" Captain America was shouting and he ignored him. He advanced upon him and he raised his shield just in time. The hammer was useful, he thought as he brought it down upon the shield. Captain America barely held under his blow and he made to strike again.

"Alexei!"

That was Natasha's voice, and he turned to her. She was standing beside Captain America and furious betrayal filled him. She stepped forward and looked straight up, met his eyes.

"Fight it," she said. His lips thinned and then an armoured man blasted him into a wall. His head banged against it and he had the feeling that something was  _wrong_.

"Alexei," the Red Room agent said. Not his handler but still, he was Red Room, he was qualified to give orders. "Kill them." He rose, intent upon doing so.

"No." It was Natasha again, and he spat out, "I will kill you last, traitor."

"Thor, please." It was Captain America and his voice stirred something in him. His lips parted. "I love you." He could have laughed but for the fact that all of a sudden he didn't want to hurt him. His grip on the hammer slackened a little.

"Alexei," Natasha said once more. "Come back."

He looked between the man from the Red Room and Natasha and faltered.

"Alexei!" the man ordered sharply and he felt the doubt wash away until Natasha spoke once more.

"Thor," she said, and it felt  _right_.

There was a surge of lightning, and then Red Room agent was a charred and dead and his arm had short-circuited. He sank against the wall and Natasha moved quietly to his side. He gave her a grateful look and then Steve approached.

He looked away, ashamed.

XX

They had first said they loved each other after two months. Thor was terrified to say it but knew it was the truth and he didn't make a habit of hiding the truth.

He had to repeat himself twice to make himself heard and Steve was quiet for a long time and he was so sure he'd been too hasty. But then Steve spoke very quietly.

"What?" he asked and Steve spoke to the ground.

"I love you too," he whispered, and he let out a huge exhale of relief, sagging against the wall, grinning stupidly.

XX

"Did you hear?" he asked Natasha quietly after and she gave him a long look. She knew what he was asking.

Finally she nodded.

"I did," she said quietly. But he trusted her, and only she would have understood it- and what it meant to him. He let out a breath.

The only people who had ever known his trigger word were his handlers.

XX

Thor had been given the strength to fight the conditioning the Red Room had done by Steve saying he loved him, twice. But Steve wouldn't always be with him, and he had no doubt that they'd find him again. They were good at what they did, and he'd been their dog for a decade.

Who knew what they'd done to him?

If Steve wasn't there, would he be able to fight them?

XX

Asgard was not something he'd made up.

His certainty as a child of that surged back and he wanted to find the doctor and tell him- but he was probably long dead by now. Everyone was, but Steve and Natasha.

Though he'd live forever now, he supposed. Live forever knowing everything he'd done and all the people he'd killed.

The way he'd relished every death and craved more jobs.

Already the memories of his lives were blurring. Was the fabricated life the Red Room had created for him the one in which he'd played in the snow, or was that his life on Asgard? Did it snow on Asgard?

He tried to tell himself that none of what he was told by the Red Room was real. That he'd never had a sister or an alcoholic mother. That his mother was the kindest lady he knew, he had a brother and he did know his father.

But it felt so real. Down to the photos they'd shown him. He remembered what they'd told him as if it had actually happened, and sometimes-

Sometimes he woke up convinced he was Alexei, and hating anything American.

Hating Steve.

XX

That being restored to his divine nature had unlocked all his memories was a curse more than a blessing. Not only did he remember growing up on Asgard, but now he remembered the prince he had been, a boy who craved war. He also remembered being the Winter Soldier.

He had returned to Asgard only once after being restored Mjolnir, bringing Loki back after his attack on Midgard. Mother had thrown her arms around him and he hadn't been able to meet Father's eyes.

It was nice to know he hadn't dreamed Asgard up. But he felt intensely self-conscious standing there with a Midgardian arm and the knowledge of all he had done. Wrong. Tarnished.

And so he turned away and walked back down the Rainbow Bridge.

XX

He didn't speak to Steve for a long time, took off on his own. He had to find himself- if there was anything left of him to find. But no matter where he went he couldn't pull his three selves and lives apart, sort them into neat piles.

He would always have three lives, he supposed. And never know what happened in which.

He sighed heavily and leaned on the handle of his bike, closing his eyes.

XX

Steve met him eagerly on his return, and he wanted to return his eagerness. But he simply couldn't. He had a nagging voice screaming that Steve was the enemy, the number one enemy, in Russian. He'd been away too long. He wasn't the same boy Steve had grown up with, he was a prince, he was a  _god_ -

He pushed Steve away.

He loved Steve, still, but he couldn't give him what he wanted.

XX

He and Natasha had defected separately.

He'd hated her when he'd found out she had gone to America with an American assassin called Clint Barton, had cursed her for being a traitor. He'd vowed to kill her, to personally punish her for her defection.

He was only grateful he hadn't seen her before he broke his own programming. It was on his third fight with Steve that he had.

He'd had Steve pinned on the ground, his shield discarded, and was pushing on his throat, gripping it with his metal arm. Steve was thrashing and choking for breath and a single tear slipped down his cheek.

"Thor," he'd whispered, "Thor,  _please_."

He'd paused. That tone had angered him, but not the type he was accustomed to. Rather, it had brought  _protective_  anger to the surface. Steve had taken advantage of his distraction to sit up and say "I love you", pushing his hand from his throat.

Something in him cracked, and he had a lot hidden behind the barrier the Red Room had erected in his mind. He let out a great shuddering breath and looked at Steve- really  _looked_  at him. Looked at the desperate man, and saw a skinny boy.

He gasped aloud as lightning struck him and his arm shorted out painfully and a hammer landed in his hand. A rush of memories passed over him, all in a blur- snow and gold and the field he'd worked in the orphanage picking potatoes, all in one image- and he curled up as he dropped the hammer, clutching his head. It was too much, he couldn't-

He felt hands on his back and twisted to look up at Steve.

"Steve," he whispered, remembering everything. The kisses, the handjobs, the way their fingers interlocked, their first time once they moved in together, Steve beneath him, so beautiful- he remembered that he loved him.

He yanked away. How could he have forgotten that? How could he have hated him? What if his programming kicked in again, he'd kill him, he knew, he remembered, remembered  _everything_ -

"Go," he whispered. "Go before I hurt you. Please." He blindly shoved him away until he felt Steve finally comply.

SHIELD had found him not long later.

XX

Loki had attacked Earth close to a year after Thor had shaken his programming. In those months he'd been both a soldier and an assassin for SHIELD, who never trusted him (with good reason) and who he never trusted.

But at least he'd reunited with Natasha and met and befriended Clint. They were spies, they had rough pasts- they understood. He found solace in them, and they helped him to see that his past did not define him.

Natasha had remembered some things about her life before, one of the things she remembered being him; and he was glad for it. He had no familiar faces besides Steve and he was avoiding Steve. He was too ashamed to look him in the eye and Steve never could understand, no matter how much he tried.

He simply wasn't Thor anymore; not the boy Steve had grown up with and fallen in love with. He loved him still, but he wasn't the same.

And so he avoided him.

When Loki did to Clint what the Red Room had done to him he was furious and there was no mercy in his blows. Loki had looked stunned and then delighted.

"You've changed, Odinson," he said.

He had. He remembered loving Loki, and he remembered all Loki had done. His love for Loki, as his love for Steve, held out but Loki had hurt people, Loki had hurt and used  _him_ \- much as the Red Room had.

And he forgave Loki for that no more than he had the Red Room. He'd loved the cause they had stood for as well.

When he struck, he did so to kill.

XX

He'd been told by the Red Room, once the false identity they were planting in him was taking hold, that the Americans had captured him on an op and reprogrammed him. They told him they were breaking their programming so he could return to his own side. It was almost funny, how right they'd nearly been. Because the orphanage had done just that, wittingly or not.

But in the end it, too, was a lie- just like everything else he'd been told by them.

Still, some mornings he woke up and hated SHIELD for everything it stood for.

XX

Steve had rescued him more than once.

He'd been captured with the rest of the 107th and tests had been done on him during the war, as Thor the orphan. He only vaguely remembered them, even now. There'd been needles, there'd been pain. And then Steve was leaning over him and he'd smiled.

Steve had looked different as he unbound him and helped him up and he'd tried to support himself so not to strain his skinny friend, but he wasn't skinny anymore. He'd tried to thank him, ask him what he was doing there and ask what had happened to him all at once and ended up saying nothing. Steve had smiled and patted his back.

"Up you get, soldier," he'd said and he'd risen then on shaky legs that regained their balance only slowly, leaning on Steve until they did.

"Yes sir," he'd said.

The doctors had never been able to tell what had been done to him. But he suspected it was the start of what the Red Room had continued.

What did it matter now, anyway? What was done was done. That was what Clint and Natasha told him, and that was what he struggled to believe.

XX

What was done was done.

He'd been a brat of a prince, wrathful and prideful, ready to start a war over his pride alone, but he'd been kind too. And that kindness had carried to his other lives. It had led him to befriend Steve, and it had led him to be a better man than he might have been as Alexei. The Red Room had tried to kill his kindness but failed.

No, they had simply unlocked the prince he once was; the bloodthirstiness of that prince, as well as his unfailing loyalty. And they had unlocked it for their benefit.

He had almost loved Natasha.

But he never could have truly loved her.

In his heart he still loved Steve, loved Steve as he had no other, none other than Loki.

He had been a poor prince, but he hoped he'd been a good friend to those who called him friend, in all three of his lives, but even had he not-

What was done was done.

All he could do was move on.

XX

He loved Steve, and he just couldn't stay away from him. He worked with him as an Avenger, and he'd been drawn to his side. Finally he kissed him, unable to resist any longer, and Steve had eagerly returned it, clutching his hand. Thor hadn't been able to make himself pull away.

"I'm not the same," he said, Steve needed to know, to understand- "I've done things- terrible things-"

"I love you," Steve said as if it negated all his crimes, and he let him kiss him once more, truly wanting to believe it did.

 


End file.
